


P'rima

by ryfkah



Series: Space Jews Celebrating Space Purim [2]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, Jewish Character, Jewish Holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 17:13:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6292891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryfkah/pseuds/ryfkah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Where's Molly?"</p><p>"Oh," said Keiko, reaching for the soup, "she's downstairs, practicing for the P'rima play."</p><p>Bashir attempted to mask his double-take.</p>
            </blockquote>





	P'rima

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mihrsuri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mihrsuri/gifts).



"Where's Molly?"

"Oh," said Keiko, reaching for the soup, "she's downstairs, practicing for the P'Rima play."

Bashir attempted to mask his double-take. The timing _was_ about right, but -- "P'Rima? You don't mean a _Purim_ play." 

Keiko shrugged. “P'rima's what they said. There's a family of Vulcan Jews – well, you know Sakkath and Vyorin, down in Personnel? Their daughter T'Ra was in school with Molly? They're concerned that T'Ra is missing the P'Rima experience, so they asked if some of the other children here –”

“Hang on,” said O'Brien, putting down his fork. “Vulcan Jews? You mean, one of 'em's married to an Earth Jew, or --”

Keiko shook her head. “No, they're both Vulcan Jews. I read an article on this, Miles, it's actually very interesting. There's a sect of Vulcan Jews that have identified that way for centuries. They reached out to some prominent Earth Rabbis after First Contact, and there was a lot of controversy about it --” 

"I can imagine! Most likely it's a cult that's got some similarities, and the universal translator got it wrong.” He glanced over at Bashir. “Well, you tell her, Julian, you'd know. Judaism's an old Earth cult, it can't have just popped up on Vulcan by itself.”

“No, Keiko's right,” said Bashir. “There are Vulcan Jews.” He didn't add that this statement encompassed about the full extent of his knowledge on Vulcan Jews. While it felt a bit uncomfortable to be appealed to, suddenly, as an expert at the table, it felt more uncomfortable to have it turn out that he wasn't the expert after all. Keiko seemed to know more than he did just by virtue of having read an interesting article. "And I wouldn't call it a _cult._ " 

“Here's the really interesting part,” said Keiko. “Eventually, someone did genetic testing, and found out – well, you know Vulcan and human biology really isn't all that different. It turns out that some of the Vulcans who claim to be Jewish actually have a specific gene that, on Earth, is only found in people of Jewish descent --”

“The Cohen Modal Haplotype." Bashir was far too relieved to find himself back on a solid expert footing to wait politely for Keiko to finish her sentence. “Not all Jews carry the genetic marker, actually. It indicates the descendants of the historical priestly caste, the Kohanim, who all theoretically trace their heritage back to a hypothesized common ancestor known as Y-chromosomal Aaron --”

“I don't buy it,” said O'Brien. “I still think it's a translator error.” 

“Oh, come on, Miles, there's all kinds of ways that a Jewish community might have ended up on Vulcan pre-contact. Accidental time travel, or a dimensional warphole, or a Q did it –”

“You can't just explain away things that don't make sense by waving your hand and saying a Q did it!” 

While they bickered, Bashir frowned down at his miso soup, trying to sort out how he felt. He had always rather assumed there weren't any other Jews on the station – after all, the human population of Deep Space Nine numbered less than a hundred all together. It hadn't occurred to him to wonder about non-Terran Jews. 

He tried to remember if he'd ever actually gone to see a Purim play, and could not come up with any concrete mental evidence that he had. Starfleet Academy Hillel had put one on every year that he was in the Academy, but he had never felt drawn to attend. It was possible that his grandfather – the only member of the family to regularly attend synagogue – had taken him when he was a child, but mostly his memories of the holidays revolved around his mother's attempts to make sambusak el tawa or hadji bada at home. In fact, he couldn't recall how he had first learned the Purim story. It seemed he had always known it, just as he had always known the story of First Contact, and the story of Passover, and the story of how James T. Kirk beat the Kobayashi Maru.

“Julian --” Bashir looked up, startled out of his thoughts. It seemed that Keiko had won the argument while he was distracted, or at least cut it off while she wasn't losing. “I'm sorry I didn't think to ask you before,” Keiko said, “but would you like to come see the performance next week? It'll mostly be the kids and their parents, but I'm sure Molly would be happy to see you there." 

"Well," said Bashir. “Yes. Yes, I suppose I would.”

[](http://s1305.photobucket.com/user/ryfkah/media/spae%20purim%20bashir%20obrien_zpssvaxxqgl.jpg.html)


End file.
